DIFFERENT OPINIONS: Police charge man with robbery for seizing debtor’s phone

Post Date : April 24, 2023

 

Police in Imo State, South-east Nigeria, have charged a man, Solomon Ohadoma, with robbery for seizing his debtor’s phone.

Mr Ohadoma, a 29-year-old civil engineer, reportedly grabbed the phone from his debtor, Chidiebere Ahamefula at about 9 a.m. on 9 March along the road after Mr Ahamefula repeatedly failed to pay for a project he did for him.

The young engineer had vowed not to return the phone until he gets his payment.

The incident happened in Ihiagwa, Owerri West Local Government Area of Imo State.

The police, on Mr Ahamefula’s invitation, arrested Mr Ohadoma and hurriedly charged him before a magistrate for robbery for seizing the phone. He was also charged with assault against police officers, conspiracy and disturbance of public peace.

Since then, Mr Ohadoma has been remanded in prison and is scheduled to appear again before the magistrate on 26 April.

Mr Ahamefula runs a local brothel. He is said to be connected to the police authorities in the area.

Mr Ohadoma’s arrest became a topical issue on Twitter when his younger sister, Chiduebube, raised alarm on the microblogging site that the brother was being molested by some police officers.

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“Please, I need help, this police officer is shooting at my brother in broad daylight,” she said in the Twitter post, which was accompanied by a clip of the incident.

In the 15-second clip, some gun-wielding police officers were seen beating up Mr Ohadoma.

While sympathisers attempted to shield the victim from the beating, one of the officers appeared to be threatening them – the sympathisers – and cocking his rifle.

“Please, I need help, this police officer is shooting at my brother in broad daylight,” she said in the Twitter post, which was accompanied by a clip of the incident.

In the 15-second clip, some gun-wielding police officers were seen beating up Mr Ohadoma.

While sympathisers attempted to shield the victim from the beating, one of the officers appeared to be threatening them – the sympathisers – and cocking his rifle.

“You are releasing bullet on my own brother,” Ms Chiduebube was heard yelling at one of the officers in a mixture of Igbo and English languages.

The officers took Mr Ohadoma to Umuchima Police Station, within the community, after inviting a nurse to treat him – he was bleeding, apparently from the beating he got from the officers, PREMIUM TIMES learnt.

The matter became complicated when Ms Chiduebube and three of her sisters were allegedly assaulted and arrested by five officers while they were on their way to the police station for a possible resolution of the issue that led to the arrest of their brother – Mr Ohadoma.

A man identified as Onyema Kalu, a student at the Federal University of Technology Owerri, was also arrested for filming the assault incident.

Journey to police cell, prison

But when they got to the police station, the four sisters and Mr Kalu were all kept behind a counter and later thrown into a police cell, before they were hastily charged the following day before a magistrate in Owerri, and then remanded in the prison.

They were not allowed access to a lawyer. Their parents were not aware of their arraignment.

PREMIUM TIMES observed that the arrest of the suspects, their arraignment at the court, and their movement to the prison happened in less than 24 hours.

The Magistrate Court, on 23 March, granted bail to the four sisters, after spending nearly two weeks in prison, but refused their brother’s bail application. Mr Kalu, the resident, was also granted bail.

Their brother, Mr Ohadoma’s bail application was, however, rejected by the magistrate.

Lawyers speak
According to Section 401 of the Nigerian Criminal Code Act, “Any person who steals anything and, at or immediately before or immediately after the time of stealing it, uses or threatens to use actual violence to any person or property in order to obtain or retain the thing stolen or to prevent or overcome resistance to its being stolen or retained, is said to be guilty of robbery.”

“If he (Ohadoma) took his (Ahamefula) phone, it does not amount to robbery,” said Monday Ubani, an Abuja-based lawyer and chairman of the Section on Public Interest and Development Law conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA).

The lawyer said robbery can only be said to have taken place when someone “steals something” with a weapon or anything that can harm the robbery victim.

He said although the robbery charge was unlikely to “fly” in court, Mr Ohadoma’s decision to snatch the phone from Mr Ahamefula was not the right way to recover his debt.

“He (Ahamefula) won’t succeed in the charge of robbery because he (Ohadoma) didn’t apply any harmful instrument on him (Ahamefula). At worst, it can be stealing, but not robbery, unless there is evidence that he (Ohadoma) used any instrument that can harm,” he added.

Inibehe Effiong, another legal practitioner, told PREMIUM TIMES that the country’s law insists that for a case of robbery to be established, two elements of the offence of robbery – use of force to obtain property and intention of permanent deprivation of the said property – must be proved.

“I am not sure that (snatching of phone) strictly may amount to robbery, even though the person has taken the law into his hands,” Mr Effiong said.

The human rights lawyer argued that it is legally permissible, in some circumstances, to take a debtor’s property as a lien.

“If he merely took the property as a lien, for instance… because the law actually allows a person, in some limited circumstances, to hold on the property of the person that is owing him or her as a lien,” he stated.

“But that right of lien is not absolute. However, if there was no intention of permanent deprivation – that’s to either put the phone to personal use or sell it – it may be difficult to make a case of robbery.”

Another lawyer, Vincent Adodo, said the charge of robbery cannot succeed in court without evidence of the use of force.

“How can it be robbery? That cannot be robbery in any case except if there was the use of force,” said Mr Adodo, an-Abuja based legal practitioner.

The lawyer corroborated the views of Mr Effiong that an individual being owed can exercise the right of lien by holding onto his debtor’s property until the debtor pays him.

“You can exercise the right of lien, but not that you can collect the property and start using it,” Mr Adodo said.

But Bulus Atsen, the immediate past chairperson of NBA, Abuja branch, told this newspaper that the action could be argued to be robbery given that Mr Ohadoma resorted to self-help, which he said, is not permissible in law.

For Obioma Ezenwobodo, another lawyer, although Mr Ohadoma’s action of grabbing the debtor’s phone was inappropriate, robbery does not suffice in the case.

“But charge for robbery will not suffice because I don’t see ingredients of robbery there given that when he took the phone, he didn’t convert it to his personal use,” Mr Ezenwobodo said.

Retired police officers speak
Joseph Ngwu, a retired assistant superintendent of police, told PREMIUM TIMES that if there was no use of a harmful instrument in seizing a debtor’s property, the charge of robbery cannot suffice.

“The problem is that seizing his (the debtor’s) phone on the road was not proper. But if there was no weapon used and no injury inflicted on the debtor, then it was not robbery,” Mr Ngwu said.

The retired officer, however, said Mr Ohadoma would need some witnesses to testify in court that he (Ohadoma) did not use any weapon against the debtor when he grabbed the phone.

On his part, Kris Kpanga, another retired police officer, told this newspaper that Mr Ohadoma was wrong to have grabbed Mr Ahamefula’s phone, saying he could have reported the matter to the police, despite being, initially, a civil case.

“For him to go on his own to seize the phone is criminal,” said Mr Kpanga, a retired deputy superintendent of police.

Asked if Mr Ohadoma’s action amounted to robbery, the retired officer said, “It depends. If he attacked with a weapon, it is robbery.”

When reminded that Mr Ohadoma’s family said he did not attack with a weapon, the former officer, who served in the State Criminal Investigation Department of police, replied, “It all depends on the way he collected the phone.”

“If both of them agreed – let me hold your phone, when you pay me, you will collect your phone – it is a different thing than when you see a person, you snatch the phone from his hand by force. It depends on how he picked up the phone.

“If you use force on him, then it becomes a robbery. But if it is an agreement between two of them, then it is not robbery.”

When confronted with the views expressed by the lawyers and retired officers that the action of Mr Ohadoma against Mr Ahamefula did not amount to robbery, the police spokesperson in the state, Mr Okoye, said he would not comment on the case because the matter was before a court.

Source: Premium Times 

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